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Fellow Travellers

Saturday, June 30, 2012

As part of my training regime, I had to do some jumps to strengthen my legs. I only remembered to do this at 9 this evening, so I can only imagine the people living below us were a bit annoyed when I started leaping across the living room and making thudding noises through their ceiling. Still, we haven't been remonstrated with by an angry person from downstairs, so maybe everyone in Chinatown is quite used to people jumping around their flats. We should be glad that we're on the top floor and there's nobody leaping about above us.
The other exercise I had today was to get up early and go for a run, then come home and lie on the floor eating tortilla chips all day. Singapore is celebrating something or other today. I know this because my usual running route was blocked off by adolescent soldiers in camouflage fatigues manhandling metal barriers. This evening, three helicopters flew over Singapore, dangling an enormous Singaporean flag, and then there were some fireworks.

It's confusing. Partly because of the soldiers wearing jungle camouflage when they're in the middle of an urban environment. Partly because there weren't any obvious signs saying what was being celebrated. National Day isn't for a while, and Youth Day isn't till next week. Maybe it was 'dick around with expensive military kit' Day, a traditional celebration where people justify their jobs by flying fighter aircraft over the CBD or parking a submarine in the Marina.

Although my wife is easily impressed and spent the evening looking at the fireworks (which were mostly obscured by the big buildings in the way) I was intent on watching the motorcycle racing at Assen. It seems the bigger the bike the less exciting it was: the Moto3 race was brilliant, with a crowd of loons all evenly matched, and close racing without any crashes, whereas the MotoGP race started with a display of incompetence bordering on genius, as a bloke on the second row went far too fast into the first corner and took out the guy who's first in the championship. And then it was mostly a procession to the end, with a few exceptions.

I think this means the most exciting race would put twenty five midgets onto Pizza Hut delivery mopeds, with each midget having a broken ankle, and for the Singapore air force to fly overhead firing Catherine wheels at the track every five minutes to demonstrate their military prowess. Maybe that's how they'll do the Formula 1 this year.

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